


cuckoos and magpies

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (it happens), (mention) - Freeform, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Developing Relationship, Discussion of Abortion, Established Relationship, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Menstruation, Psychological Horror, Rape, Sibling Incest, ish, not graphic but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19432933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: “The gods are Lannisters,” he said: and his face was pale. “They do not permit us to be in their debt.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was intended as another chapter to All Cats Are Grey, and then it got out from under me.
> 
> the shift of topic & tone is enough to warrant a new work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 29 June-30 June 2019.

She sent a raven to her father, when spring came.

Jaime was sleeping through the night, mostly, and he had began to laugh again. He told her stories of his childhood. _When Tyrion was twelve,_ he said, or _Did I ever tell you the time I stole ..._ She liked to hear the stories, she liked his voice against the skin of her neck, rough from sex, telling her nonsense. She liked him.

Even now and then he had a story of Cersei — brought up so casually that she knew it was a way to skirt the raw wound of his loss, festering still. 

It needed to be cleaned. But it wasn’t her pain, it was Jaime’s; and he held the knife.

Brienne held a quill and thought.

Ravens could not hold a long scroll, and a bird could be caught. Be killed. Go astray.

And her father was not an easy man. Slow to trust and slow to anger too, but his rage once woken would only be extinguished when it burned itself out.

She spent three days deciding on what words to use, amusing herself by thinking what Jaime would say if he had the chance. _I’ve spent the last month bedded down in your finest Keep,_ he’d say, or _If anyone in your family has lost anything recently, Lord Selwyn, a maidenhead perhaps? I might know where it’s gone._

He was a ridiculous pain in the ass, he frustrated and annoyed and deliberately bothered her. And all the time now her face ached, trying not to smile.

_I your daughter and only living child, named Brienne, pray request the honor of your earnest word in response to ..._

To what?

_To the pospect of an alliance with the house of Lannister._

There. He could not be furious at a _prospect_ , could he?

She couldn’t be sure.

For the first time, Brienne found herself grateful for the distance between herself and home.

*

 _Tyrion Lannister does not deserve you,_ is all he said. 

_Jaime_ , she sent to him, on the same wind.

And then there were no birds for a long time.

*

“You are troubled,” said the least-troublesome Lannister. “What worries you? Is there someone I can order you to kill?”

“May I speak frankly, my lord?”

“Please,” said Tyrion. “And I will happily order you to kill any one you like. Although if you’re troubled by Jaime, ...”

“No. Yes. That is, no.”

“That was a great advance in clarity. And since I anticipate more sentences in a similar structure, I will only agree to continue this conversation if you are drinking wine. I will too. There, lady Brienne,” pouring her a glassful, “upend the cup and unburden your mind. Has Jaime offended you? He is very good at giving offense.”  
  
“No. Oh, no. That is, he is extremely vexing, I want him to be quiet as often as I ...”

“A family trait,” sighed the youngest. “We are all made on similiar lines. Are you — that is, do you anticipate — an addition to the household?”

Gods, no. “Nothing like that.”

“Good. Because he has taken a vow, you know, never to have children.”

She laughed aloud and set down her wine.

Tyrion said: “I really am _unreasonably_ glad he chose you. He doesn’t often have the sense the gods gave a doorknob, you know, at least in matters of the ... heart. And you are, well ...”

“Ugly?”

“I was going to comment on your personality, ser Brienne, not your looks. To wit, you are not the easiest of persons to know. And while my big brother is terrifically stubborn, he doesn’t often apply it to getting anything that is worth having.”

She sat silent. “He saved my pride and possibly my life, years ago, when he hated me.”

“See?” said Tyrion. “He could only fall in love with you out of the corner of his eye.” A pause. “Do you anticipate your father will oppose the match?”

She bit her mouth.

“Come now, I am not a fool. A maiden of some name, a lordling’s only daughter, tangled with a Lannister? It could easily be disaster. So I watched.

”You would have sent a bird at once if you planned to trap him, and none at all if you did not want to wed — or if you did not care for your father’s opinion. Of course you might have started another little blonde bastard, ... but you say you have not, and from the look on your face that is not in your plans.

”You seem like a woman who decides before she acts. So tell me what you and your father are planning now.”

She had nothing to say.

“Three birds in a week, and no mention of the affair? Come. Be forthright, my lady. I thought we were friends.”

 _Friends,_ she thought. Did a friend ply another with wine? “I was overly vague in my first message. My father wrote back that you did not deserve me.”

Tyrion laughed, apparently not offended. “And what was your response?”

“I told him that I want Jaime, my lord. Not your lordship.”

“Everyone wants Jaime. Although he is a remarkably constant lad, when you consider all the girls he _could_ bed, merely for posessing that face. Do you anticipate your father will consider a missing hand as much issue as missing a nose? No? So despite all the quibbles and protests, your trouble is indeed over my brother.”

She sat miserable.

”You haven’t touched your wine.”

“I’m not entirely certain that I enjoy drinking with you.”

“Therefore, my lady,” said Tyrion, “we shall drink until you do.”

*

 _Trouble_ , he had called it. And she had more than one on her mind. It was a month and weeks since she had began bedding, and she wasn’t a fool.

So she went to Lady Stark, who told her of a plant that grew in the godswood — _lovesbane_ , it was called —

Brienne said: “Would not such a thing anger the gods?”

“I doubt they will be more angry over this than they would be that no one comes to see them,” Sansa said.

“Any time you wish to visit, I will accompany you for guard.”

“But not for yourself, Ser Brienne?”

“They are not my gods, my lady.”

She was no wildcrafter, she only knew what made her skin break open and itch, and what woods would or would not burn clean and hot; it took some time to find the low, shy plant Sansa had described.

Heart shaped leaves growing flat, she’d said, in clusters of two and two like hands clasped together. Thin white flowers with blood-red innards.

She bent over and took a plant — roots and all — tucked it into her belt — and straightened up.

Someone was watching her.

Hand on her sword, ready and listen and _don’t draw it yet_ : she saw no one. Called out, heard no reply. But every part of her body prickled with that awareness.

She was not afraid — she was _not_. Further in the wood she walked, and the silence increased and the stillness pressed down, not even a bird or rabbit or breath of wind to rustle the leaves.

 _Brienne_ , someone said.

She drew at that, turning and ready to fight. “Who speaks? Who knows my name?”

Silence.

“I am Ser Brienne of Tarth, knighted in battle-service, owing fealty to the Lannisters and to Lady Stark. I have come on my own business. I mean no harm or offense to anyone here.”

Silence.

 _Brienne,_ said the voice in her ear _._

She turned, raising her sword, eyes wide.

No one. Nothing.

Only now there was the distant _kree-kree-kree-ee-ee_ of a bird, and now the wind caught the forest floor and tumbled it with leaves, and whatever eyes that had watched her were closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nota bene that i’m an atheist, with a bit of extra complication thrown in to annoy myself & confuse everyone else.
> 
> *
> 
> my description of lovesbane is not an accurate description of any abortifacient.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 30 June - 1 July 2019.

She had no intentions of telling Jaime or anyone this folly, but when she returned she found the excusion was wasted: her blood had started. She had to explain it to him then, when he reached for her and found rags.

“You’re not due for weeks.”

He spoke so casually of this: would she ever be used to it? “No, but — sometimes — it comes early.”

“If a wench drinks certain teas, yes. Do you ... need it? Was your flow blocked?” Hesitation in his voice, and something more.

“No.”

“Yet you hung lovesbane in your swordbelt?”

She’d forgotten to remove it. “The godswood. Lady Sansa said it grew there, so I went. I was only ... preventing. Jaime, you aren’t angry?”

He was pale. “I don’t like you going there alone.”

“I had my sword,” automatically. “You believe in those things? Gods and monsters? Even before battles ...” Atheists knelt and bowed their heads, pleading with whomever would hear: but Jaime did not bend.

“No,” he said. “I do not pray. Brienne, find your herbs somewhere else. The gods will give you nothing without repayment.”

“It’s only a plant.”

“And you came away bleeding.” He kissed her. “Raid the forests elsewhere. I don’t want them to know your face.”

*

None of this made it easier to speak to him. _I sent word to my father,_ she wanted to say, or _I’m in love with you and I don’t seem to be able to stop it._ Would he like that, if she joked?

She brushed the hair off his face and he smiled in his sleep. _Jaime_. Frustrating, noisy, stubborn, adored.

Love didn’t make her want to bear his children, however. She brewed her tea over the fire in their room — the mornings were still quite chilly, and her lordly bedpartner complained whenever his pampered toes touched cold stone. Fire helped.

So did Jaime. She drank down the bitterness every morning in front of the sunrise and him, wrinkling her nose at the taste, and he smiled at her.

“Has the tisane helped you, ser Brianne?”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you.”

“Did you find the godswood to your liking?”

She’d hated every second of it. “Yes, my lady.”

“I used to walk there,” said Sansa, “when I was married to Lord Bolton. Not in this wood of course, and their forest was no longer kept. But the old gods do not forget us, do they, ser? I walked alone, with the guards watching, and I prayed.” She picked a bloom of lacey grey bridal-wreath and twisted it in her fingers. “My father taught me how to pray under his heartstree, and I found ... I found my faith returned to me, when I was under trials.”

 _They give nothing without payment._ “Did they answer your prayers, my lady?”

“Oh, yes. The gods are good. I was given what I wanted, and more besides.” Her mouth twisted in what probably meant to be a smile. “They hear their children.”

They had not, however, heard the prayers of Lady Catelyn. Or Eddard, or Robb and Jeyne, or the boys. Brienne did not consider that sort of response to be good. “Ser Jaime said they are ... that the gods pay their debts.”

“Oh yes,” said Lady Sansa. “Ramsay found that out.”

*

Her hands shook as she opened the scroll. _Ser Lannister is unable to wed and unwilling to give up his freedoms,_ wrote her father. _You will think further over this issue and respond._

She didn’t need to think. _Whatever needs deciding was resolved years ago. It remains only to receive your consent: or_ _not._

Arguing with him was not unusual, they’d spent her life in arguments over everything, from her dresses to her suitors to the type of sword she swung. Even her hair he’d had an opinion on, until she caught up a knife and sliced through it at the supper table.

Instead of yelling, he laughed. _You are so much like your mother._

Was she?

Jaime slipped out of her and she lay on his chest, kissing him, not ready to move away.

“Heavy wench,” he mumbled. “Suffocating me.”

“And yet you have breath to complain.” She shifted off, still curled around him. “I wrote to my father.”

Fear on his face: and something else. “What did he say?”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.” She hadn’t needed permission to bed him; she would wed him just the same.

If he’d have her.

“Of _course_ it matters.”

“You know me better than that.”

“I know that it’s not so easy to leave your family,” he said. “Or your home.”

“He won’t refuse me. That is, he _has_ refused me, but he will change his mind. My happiness matters more to him than his own pride.”

Jaime was very still. “You could do better than being with a Lannister, if you want to be happy.”

She knew it. But. “You told me before — remember? _We don’t choose who we love.”_

He heard her misstep, the word she’d never given him, and frowned. “It’s not like me to be sensible. At least not around you. When was that?”

“The first day we spent together. You had insulted Renly, — remember? — and I had my knife at your throat.”

He sighed. “How the gods do like to mock us. I should have known even then I was talking about you.”

*

She expected him to change his habits, to come on her belly or in her hands, but he only shut his eyes and swore terribly, as if he needed to pretend he was miserable, and slumped on top of her.

“M’sorry. Move n’a moment.”

“You don’t need to.” She liked him like this, damply sweating, sticky down his legs with his release and her own. He looked beautiful and shy.

He shifted off her anyway, and she missed it. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t ... shouldn’t finish inside you.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t reply.

“Do you not want more children?”

“ _You_ don’t want any. You drink ... you prevent it every day.”

 _Careful_. “It would be a complication.”

She saw the argument on his face and saw him decide to swallow it down. “Whatever you say.”

*

She returned to the godswood and went again deep inside, until the wind died and the voices whispered: _Brienne, maid of Tarth._

“I am no maid, and I have not been to Tarth in many years.”

 _Jaime_ , said the wood.

Yes. For better and worse, it was always Jaime. “What do you know of him?”

 _Jaime_ , it said, taunting her. _Jaime and Cersei._

“Do you know only names and rumors? I have a request for you.”

The world held silent, listening.

“Show yourself,” said Brienne, no longer a maid and no longer of Tarth. “Let me see your face.” She kept a hand on her sword-hilt and another at her waist, where a naked dagger was slipped through the leather of her belt.

Nothing. Nothing.

But here again was the distant song _kree-kree-ee-ee-ee-ee!,_ exactly as the wood had sung her into complacency before.

AndBrienne, not certain of anything her eyes showed, watched the wind catch and toss and scatter leaves around her feet.

*

Jaime did not smile and kiss her when she came in; he was holding a small muslin bag against his face. Rocks, kept cool in the river. The poor man’s ice.

“What ...”

“Foot slipped. On the steps.” He was lisping slightly. “Bit through.”

She didn’t move. “It will heal.”

“It will.” He gave her an odd look. “I have received so many new scars since I met you, Brienne of Tarth.”

“Don’t call me that! You said you slipped? Are you sure?”

“Someone pushed me,” slow. “But no one was there.”

 _Thomeone puthed me._ She hated to hear his voice changed, altered like this; it made her stomach feel sick with memory. _You fuck the thrupid cunt firtht,_ Vargo Hoat had said. _Make thure thee thopth that fucking noithe. T_ _hen I’ll take my turn._

“Brienne,” he said. “I was looking for you. Where were you?”

“I was in the — I wasn’t there. Why did you think I was there?”

“I heard you. You called for me. You said my name.”

“Jaime, I _didn’t_.”

“I saw you.” _I thaw you._ He sighed. “I thought I saw you.”

“Which steps? Where were you? I want to see them.”

“Along the wall, the back wall, inside,” gesturing. “But I tell you, I was alone.”

The steps along the back wall were narrow and high, and they clung to the interior and exterior simultaneously — they had been built through the wall.

It was not as foolish as she had first thought. No army could come up them, no one wearing a sword on the wrong side; only a slight man — or a woman, or a child — could fit two feet, and the softstone steps were dented in by decades of wind and rain and salt air, and any slip meant a fall down off the cliffs, into the waiting sea.

She found nothing, nothing, neither inside nor out: only a smear of dried blood near the interior base. _I was pushed._

And Jaime had been right. Anyone above him could only have run back up the steps or fly.

 _Jaime_ , said the wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the “bridal wreath” plant that Sansa picks, which i have mis-described and mis-named, is also an abortifacient.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 1-3 july 2019.

“Speak to me! Coward — fool — liar!”

The wood remained pleasant, still and quiet, but without the preternatural weight of silence that had come before; the birds were only birds, the wind only wind. Brienne found no pattern.

She sighed and turned, and nearly screamed.

“Lady Brienne,” said Sansa, resplendent in the heavy grey gown that so suited her. “I did not know you were here.”

She was cold. Frozen. “Beg pardon, my lady. I only came to walk a little alone.”

“And to yell at the trees?” Sansa laughed, light as the wind. “Did they give you an answer? No,” because Brienne was opening her mouth to beg pardon and leave, “I would have you walk with me a little deeper in, if you would.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Let me take your arm. It is so very beautiful here, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“It reminds me of the forests near Riverrun, although not so frequented by travelers and sellswords. We are marvelously isolated here. And things can still be done as they were in the old ways. Did you want ser Jaime to touch you even then?”

“I ...”

“No, let’s keep going. Further in, my love. Is that what you tell him when you take him inside your legs?”

“My lady, _please_ ...”

And then Sansa’s mouth was on hers, and her arms were around her waist, and it was not Sansa at all but Jaime; he rubbed her sweet and lay her on the leaves like it was the world’s biggest bed, and he climbed on her, kissing all the while, and nothing was ever so good.

“Jaime,” because he was fumbling at his waist, opening his trousers with quick hands. _Two_ hands? She raised herself up. “Jaime, how ...”

“Anything is possible when you ask for it,” he said: and then he split her apart.

* 

She woke in the middle of the wood, armor and sword and clothes gone, scattered nearby.

Her thighs were bruised to the knee. Her mouth and breast still oozed blood where he had bit her, torn her open. And her arms bore the mark of a pair of hands.

*

She could not let him touch her. He could not see her unclothed. How could she explain it?

“Brienne,” he said on the third day, when again she shivered and shied and pulled away, “Brienne, talk to me, please”

but

 _Pleathe_ he’d said, mouth still healing.

She could not bear it. She fled to the courtyard and vomited over and over into the dirt until there was nothing but dry heaves and strings of bile, and her body gave up.

*

Some squire found a raven dead in the wood and brought it to her; on its stiff leg was a scroll, opened and re-coiled.

 _Jaime_ it said, in her hand.

*

A week now since she had gone to the godswood; a week for her bruises to lighten and fade, and memory to become dream.

She blew out the candle and called to him. _Come_.

 _Sleep?_ he said.

 _Only sleep,_ she said.

She had forgotten that the night was dark; her dreams were full of terrors.

She had forgot too that the world has its own candles. She woke to find their room full of sun, and Jaime’s round eyes staring.

Her first thought was that she was glad to see him, so _glad_ — always, even now. She smiled.

He said, in a voice she had never heard from him: “What the _fuck_ happened to you?”

“Nothing.” She sat up, tugging the summer-fur high around herself.

He took hold of her arm and turned it outward. “Is this _nothing?_ It must have been purple clear down to your wrist. And the other one too. No wonder you’ve been hiding.”

“I don’t know — it isn’t anything — I don’t _know—”_

“There are bites on your tit and your neck — someone tore at you. Tore you open. Speaking for myself,” he said, in that same emotionless voice, “I would remember if I had done that to a lady.”

 _She_ had forgotten them. Tried to forget. “Leave me be.”

“How far down does it go?” He pulled the blanket away entirely and she fought back, because her shift was ridden up and exposed everything of her body to the waist, but he won: he was quick with rage while she had only stiff clumsy fear. “Brienne ... who _did_ this? Who hurt you?”

She stared at him. “No one.”

He laughed. “A ghost-lover. Of course.”

She pushed him away and stumbled out of the room.

* 

He would leave, she thought. He would go. And she deserved it, she deserved all of this, for ... whatever she had done.

She slept alone, the lights burning, and did not dream.

*

He didn’t speak to her except for common things — _Good morning, good night, this meat needs salt, the weather is damp._ He never needed more than a _yes_ or _no_.

And he slept outside her door, a sword at his hip that he could barely use, asking neither permission to enter nor forgiveness for the affront. 

A month ago she would have loved him more for this. Now she was frozen, froze.

*

She went blindly through her days, thinking _Go away inside yourself, go visit your beloved Tarth, wander the fields_

but the advice came in Jaime’s voice and it only reminded her now of things she would rather forget.

*

She woke thrashing, stomach cramping in pain, unable to yell past the hand on her face.

She sat upright and covered her face with her hands. Two hands, she had _two_. No one had taken her sword skills and her hopes

no one had hurt her

she was safe she was safe she was safe, safe.

The dream alone had not woken her: there was a deep sharp pain in her belly and her legs were wet between them, and it took four tries to light the candle to see it was blood — _only_ blood.

 _Thank you,_ she thought to no one, because there were no yellowish trails left from a man taking her, as she’d been so afraid there would be, thinking _no no I cannot bear it I can’t_

_*_

The bleeding went on until she passed a little fish of a thing, a curled-up mistake no bigger than the pad of her thumb.

She tossed it and her small clothes into the fire, carefully thinking nothing. 

*

Night was a good time. She had always liked the night. Wind picked up and blew out outwards, and everyone slept but guards and lovers; she could be quiet and alone.

“Please talk to me.”

 _Talk?_ She couldn’t even look at him.

She said — because it needed to be said before he left her for good

because he wouldn’t believe her no matter what she said

because she was broken, she had given up somewhere in that wood

& she said: “I didn’t _want_ it.”

He was a long time in answering.

When she gathered courage to look, he was staring out across the water, black now, bearing the silvery dillute trace of moon.

“Jaime?”

“I would rather you had,” he said.

And finally she cried.

  
*

  
She woke from nightmares and wept again, Renly was dying in her arms and Jaime held the sword. Again she brought up the remains of her dinner and stayed there a long time, retching.

She understood now what she had done to him — when his rotting hand was tied around his neck and she told him to _live._ Taking even that choice away.

 _We don’t choose where we love_ , said Jaime. And he had not choosen her.

But when she opened her door he fell into the room, stiff on cold muscles.

She helped him upright and quieted his nonsense with a kiss.

 _Brienne?_ he said.

 _Come with me,_ she told him: and he obeyed.

*

They whispered in the dark so the gods would not hear.

”I missed you,” he said. “I hate to hear you cry all alone, while I’m outside, while ...”

”I missed you.”

“I wish you’d tell me who hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t real. _I knew that._ He wouldn’t ... he never has. I trust him.”

Jaime searched her face, saying nothing.

“I love you,” she told him.

“I know. Brienne? You don’t have to tell me who it was — who it _wasn’t_ — just tell me that it wasn’t me.”

She caught his hand in between hers. “Do you know the one person who has never hurt me? Never broken my heart?”

“Definitely not me,” Jaime said, smiling a little, mocking himself.

“Everyone has hurt me. Including the people I love most. My father. You. Even myself. Being hurt is part of life, Jaime. I don’t expect you to be perfect. I wouldn’t know what to _do_ with you if you were.”

“You won’t ever need to worry over that. But Brienne, the gods ...”

“It doesn’t matter what the gods do, or what they don’t. It doesn’t matter what debts they call in. I chose you. _I_ choose. Not them. Do you understand?”

*

She woke in the morning before dawn and kissed his sleeping face, the line between his brows and the scar she had left above them long ago, trying to drown him in the Riverlands.

 _Did you love him then?_ the false Sansa had asked, tittering.

Brienne thought that was the wrong question.

She set clean water to heat for tea, using the young fire for its shred of light as well as its warmth.

The last bit of icy water in the basin went to wash herself. Jaime liked his water warmed, he would be happier with what was left from her tea, and Brienne did not mind this sort of cold. 

Face first, then neck, hands, underarms, and at last the parts between her legs, torn bloody in the godswood and aching and swollen since. 

Jaime had been careful last night, kissing her legs up along the bruises that weren’t fading nearly fast enough, going inside her while she flinched and set her jaw until pleasure overcame pain. 

_I want to,_ he’d said, _if you want me._

She wanted him. Trusted him. That much had not changed.

She passed the rag along herself, expecting pain, tenderness — and: nothing.

No pain, no blood, no bruises, no matched handprints on her wrists, her thighs, her hips; no tear on her breast. They were all gone — as if it hadn’t ever happened — or had happened so long that it didn’t signify, anymore.

The rag dropped to the floor.

 _Jaime_.

She crawled back in bed to hold him and love him and tell him again, until he believed it, how very much she wanted him nearby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, a sort of unwilling surrogacy; magpies collect without meaning. both are symbols (or harbringers) of madness in my culture.
> 
> *
> 
> there’s an unkind joke about Bran here, if you squint. something about insanity and being pushed out from a nest, and made to fly.

**Author's Note:**

> “why jaime does not pray” is a totally different fic.
> 
> *
> 
> get out the shame bell, for this was written on my phone.


End file.
